Sergio Perez aims to emulate his friend, Manchester United's Javier Hernandez, and win title for McLaren

It is difficult to tell if Sergio Pérez bats an eyelid when asked whether he
expects to be world champion during his first season with McLaren next year.
Sauber’s 22-year-old Mexican wears big black sunglasses throughout our
interview in Suzuka, even though we are sitting indoors.

One cool customer: Sergio Perez shows no signs of being fazed by move to McLarenPhoto: EPA

Pérez, or “Checo” as he is more commonly known, is unbelievably laid-back. Less Speedy Gonzales, more Kimi Raikkonen. His answers, mostly delivered deadpan with a slight drawl, betray no hint of nerves at the prospect of the pressure-cooker environment awaiting him at Woking.

“I am going there to win the title, not just to win races,” he shrugs when asked about the expectations about to be heaped on him. “With McLaren there is no other option.”

If Pérez can do half as well in his first year as his great friend, Javier Hernández, did in his debut season with Manchester United then McLaren have acquired a bargain. “Chicharito” scored only 18 minutes into his debut for United and ended the 2010/11 season as the club’s player of the year with a Premier League medal around his neck. He was 22 at the time.

“I come from Guadalajara, the same city as Chicharito,” Pérez says. “I know him very well, we are very good friends. He was very happy that I was joining McLaren.

“To be honest my team is Barcelona, but I like Manchester United in England because of Chicharito. He was always a player who fought really hard, who never gave up. He never had things easy in his career, a bit like me. For a Mexican to achieve what he has achieved is incredible.”

Pérez is not doing so badly himself. His second place in Malaysia this year made him the first Mexican to feature on the podium since Pedro Rodríguez in 1971. But the more impressive fact was that he did it from 10th on the grid driving a Sauber. Since then he has delivered two more stunning drives, both from outside the top 10, to finish on the podium.

Most of the paddock assumed that Ferrari, to whom Pérez was attached via their academy programme, would ease the underperforming Felipe Massa aside for their hot young property. Instead, the Italian team’s president Luca di Montezemolo ruled out a move, saying the Mexican lacked the “necessary experience” .

That call was made all the more interesting when McLaren proceeded to swoop after Hamilton defected to Mercedes. Mercedes, too, are understood to have been preparing a deal for Pérez had Hamilton opted to stay at Woking.

Do Ferrari know something that McLaren and Mercedes do not? Did Fernando Alonso not want Pérez alongside him at Maranello? Pérez is coy on the subject.

“I was never really an option for Ferrari and they were never an option for me,” is all he will say. “It is difficult right now. I think they are happy with Felipe. He’s a very good driver, a proven driver as well. I’m not yet a proven driver.”

Clearly he is proven enough for McLaren. Pérez denied in Singapore two weeks ago that the Woking team had made any approach but he admits now that he was aware of their interest “for two or three months”.

“The negotiations started a long time ago,” he says. “It never distracted me though; completely the opposite. It just motivated me to do my best, to keep showing McLaren that they were making the right call if they chose to take me.”

Whether they have made the right call remains to be seen. McLaren did a fine job last week of presenting their new signing as a coup, lauding Pérez as the “best young talent in Formula One”. But there is no escaping the fact that he represents a gamble, albeit one with plenty of potential and sponsors with deep pockets.

Pérez, who hails from a motorsport background – his father was a former Mexican F3 champion and his elder brother raced in Nascar – says he has always had to fight to prove himself. “It hasn’t been easy,” he says. “We are not a rich family. I always had to find sponsors and if I don’t do well then I could lose my entire career. I had to leave my family at a very young age and move to Germany [to compete in Formula BMW].

“I did not have a lot of money so I went to live in a restaurant. When I look back it was a really difficult time. I was just staying there in a tiny town in Bavaria called Vilsbiburg in the middle of nowhere.”

Pérez also spent three years in Oxford (“one of my favourite places; I would like to live there again”) while competing in British F3 and GP2. “I may be just 22 but I have given my life to my sport,” he adds. “Maybe for a European guy it is easier but it means that I don’t see my family for a year. As a Mexican I always like to have my family around.”

On an estimated £7 million per year at McLaren, Pérez can afford to fly his family around the world with him these days. He has his mother and his sister with him this weekend.

Whether Carlos Slim’s billions will follow him to McLaren is still unclear; or the Jose Cuervo tequila girls who host Friday night parties at Sauber’s European motorhome, for that matter. Pérez is not losing sleep over any of it.

He says he is simply excited to visit the space-age McLaren Technology Centre and to work with Jenson Button (“he seems like a very cool guy”). In the meantime, he is more concerned with signing off in style at Sauber.

“I would be disappointed if I don’t get to win before I leave here,” he admits . “We have done everything else. Third place, second place twice ... Suzuka should be a good track for us.”

A Sauber win this weekend? Really? “Why not? I would never have expected at the beginning of the year that I would end up at McLaren. Always the step was going to go to Ferrari but everything changed. Life sometimes takes you where you never expect.”

He pauses. “It is the best opportunity of my life. I will not waste it.”